Muse

Rollo, the chocolate treat with caramel inside. Rollo, Rollo, roll your bow gently in my mouth. Pop, top, check it out. Lick the foil with your tongue. Give it to your friends as a gift. Let's change gears. Rollo, Tony, Brown Town. Check yourself at the door. Give me some more, give me some more, give me some more on your Rolos. That's pretty good. TBTN.

Oh, this is my jam right here. Yeah, most people think I'm on drugs because I'm always happy. Are you on drugs? No, I'm not. I'm high on life.

We may have created a monster in the lab. It's not a monster. It's a cyborg that can kill without remorse.

And there's just nothing wrong with listening ever so listen if you know what's good for you.

Remember, to achieve success, you must first conceive it and believe in it. Remember, impossible is nothing.

Well, all right. Hello, good morning, and welcome to a Monday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. First of all, I love it. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host. You want to do a make-believe radio show in a room somewhere. I'm telling you, there's no money in that. Today, we really are doing a make-believe radio show in a room somewhere, that room being my actual parents' actual basement.

Hey, Mom!

the meatloaf we want it now here we are everyone day one of the tbtl-a-thon this is the one time of the year where we take a week to remind all of you that this show can only exist because of the donations the generous donations of you the tens of listeners and we've said that many times over the last eight years during various thons and i feel like we did mean it but there was some sort of a backstop in the situation which was we worked for american public media and so we needed you all to donate they would probably fire us if we didn't raise any money but we could maybe i don't know we might be able to like stall them for a month or two that backstop that uh net underneath the high wire has been removed my friends and today episode 3979 in a collector series let the fun begin is the first day of the rest of our lives as an independent podcast and so uh yeah we would love it if you can help support us by going to tbtl.net making a donation there's a whole list of cool things that we'd love to offer you in exchange for your help that cash could really get me out of a couple of jams and of course when we're doing this this is a week for us to really embrace positivity, love, light, maybe even laughter. I promise you that there is a sign somewhere in this house extolling the virtues of both love, light, and laughter. So I don't want to go negative early, but I am feeling fairly rejected this morning by a community that I hold dear.

Charlie, that really hurts!

So we'll probably talk about that too. Oh, and we'll talk about a new version of my good friend Andrew. We call him Jeep Andrew. Brother, who are you? What are you doing? Our rental vehicle has brought out a whole new side of my good friend. Speaking of the longest-running co-bro of the program, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships, he's sitting right next to me at this folding table in my parents' basement. He is Andrew Walsh. Good morning, my friend. Good morning. I can't believe this is working.

I know. How have we not had some sort of emergency at the very last minute that always happens? It's like something crashes or some unforeseen event happens that take, I mean, maybe I'm just jinxing us. Maybe that'll happen later in the show. But, I mean, this is happening.

I mean, I just, I want to mention that about five minutes before this program, I could say arguably maybe the most important program we've ever done in the history of TBTL. If you think about the financial implications, if you think about everything that's going on, five minutes before airtime, we were sitting outside basically sunning ourselves in some Adirondack chairs here in my parents' yard. It has been playing the immaculate grid of baseball. We're trying to find something to entertain ourselves with before doing this thing that is, again, probably the most important episode of the show we've ever done. There it is. There it happened.

My computer just did the thing it's been doing lately, which is it just shut off in the middle of the song.

How important are computers to the operation here.

Why is this happening anyway? You guys know what music sounds like.

I do think you did. My parents are people of the Christian faith, and we do have an old saying and tradition in the Christian faith of speaking something into existence. Yeah, yeah. And you, my friend, just spoke that into existence. The worst part... I know that you're thinking, hey, you're doing a really important show right now. It would be bad if your computer died. The worst part about my computer dying right there is it makes Genevieve right. She has the same computer at home, and she hates it. She hates it. It was her company-issued one. This is one that I bought myself, and I love it. I'm always defending it. So nobody tell Genevieve that this computer just did that at the beginning of the broadcast because it gives her more fuel.

Everybody be cool. By the way, if you'd like to call in right now and tell everyone that Genevieve was right, We are also taking your phone calls at 206-414-TBTL. 206-414-TBTL. One of the other little fun things that we like to do during this special, special week is talk to you, the tens of listeners. We are streaming this live right now at tbtl.net. We're on YouTube. I'm not saying that for the people who are watching because you already know that that's happening. I'm saying it for the people that are listening to this hours later that if you missed the broadcast, the live broadcast on Monday, You can still catch the live broadcast on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. We will be here. Again, the phone number 206-414-TBTL. Now, we can't go much further without saying hello to TBTL employee number one, our vice president of revenue and operations. He's got hair. He's got chutzpah and broad-based knowledge. He sure does. He is John Sklaroff. Hello, my friend.

Hello, guys. Hey, John. How you feeling, buddy? I'm feeling great. you know there's a real chance my mom's watching this live stream and hearing you say that title probably just like filling her heart up so what's your mom's name karen what up karen sorry sorry

about the last couple years i hope you're very proud it's been you should be very proud of john and we're gonna try to come up with a new term for people who are being troublesome because you you the karens of the world do not deserve that oh right you know what i mean nickname karen yeah

I've got a bad rap these days. I don't like that.

Yeah, I don't like it either. I did something a few minutes ago, y'all, that I feel very regretful around. So you know my dad, he has his workshop out there for his sign company. Oh, by the way, we're at my parents' house. There is a very real chance that one or both of them will wander down into this basement at some point. I'm hoping. And that's why Andrew has rigged up what we're calling the Mom Mic. You've got to eat that microphone. This is a microphone that we can hand to whichever one of my parents come down. If you're wondering who it is, if it's my mom, you'll hear this sound effect.

I'll say, what's up, dog?

If it's Susie B, or if it's Walt B, you'll hear this one. Who is my daddy, and what does he do? My dad is in this pitched battle with the local squirrels in a kind of— It's true. It's macabre almost. Well, yeah, it's more macabre than I expected. So he does not like these squirrels getting into his shop and chewing on things. One of them chewed on his door. One of them chewed on some sign he was working on. And he is apparently dispatching the squirrels using violence. I'll just leave it at that. I don't want to trigger anyone. I also don't want people to get the wrong idea about Walt.

Okay. Can I add just one? Can I just add one dazzling detail? There's a pellet. pellet gun involved i believe it's a bb gun well i asked i asked the follow-up questions it's called a bb gun at first because it sounds cuter and also because that's what my mom called

it i'll say what i don't think she knows the difference so i was going off of her description

well your dad said bb gun too and i said but i've had bb guns before and i said is it really a pellet gun knowing uh again trying not to get too dark here but knowing the impact that these projectiles had on the rodents i it sounded more like a pellet to me you said rodents not our friend rodent no not not rodent every rodent is turning your computer on for the second time i well the first time it did this by itself then the audio stopped working totally so i'm doing a restart but i'm also like i'm chatting i'm no you're doing you're multitasking yeah but right now if you're trying to call in and you're like nobody's picking up it's because we have you

know the issues that i i spoke into existence so my dad who is uh really one of the gentlest souls that i know and just an absolute sweetheart of a feller um he has unfortunately ended the lives of a few squirrels using a firearm and i'm going to call it what it is a firearm and um and i didn't like hearing that at all uh i said could you just like put out a some kind of humane trap or poison them and he said no it's more fun shooting at them which again is a it's honesty it's a fissure in our father-son relationship that we may never recover from but this is where i become one of waltz complicit actors i just out of habit i walked up there i was printing out the show sheet for today's episode and i was going up to my dad's office where the printer is and as i was walking uh in i noticed a squirrel ran into his shop and before i could stop myself i said oh a squirrel just ran in there oh you knocked us i knocked out a squirrel who's probably no longer

living did your did your father just reach for his revolver as the song goes i think he knew

enough to wait until my virginal eyes had left the situation he didn't do anything in front of me but like the second the second that i like like i would you ever say something and you wish you could reach out and grab it and pull it right back into your no that's not that's just not

my lived experience i've never done that i've never regretted anything i've ever said or done

I immediately, immediately regretted it. And so I'm off to a little bit of a rough start here on this Monday morning. I'm sorry.

You know what? I mean, the chance of your father finding that firearm, bringing it down from wherever it's hidden.

I believe it's sitting on the porch, and it's very unsettling because it's a pistol. Oh, it is a pistol? Well, there's a pistol sitting on the— What's the difference between a pistol and a revolver?

I think a revolver is a specific Were you going to jump in on that John?

Are you a senior VP Of revenue Operations and gunsmithing?

I might say something That on this show never happens That makes people upset Because the facts are wrong But I think a revolver Is like you have to pull the thing back It has the little thing that revolves And it cocked it back and then it Clicks into place like for Russian roulette Whereas a pistol

Okay, well, good. Let's get Russian roulette into the conversation as early as possible on the first day of the rest of our life. Hey, has anybody seen the deer hunter? Actually, no. So there is some kind of, I don't think it's a real firearm, but there's some kind of pistol that was sitting there that I suspect is the thing that was being used maybe to dispatch the squirrels. Anyway, I've learned my lesson, and if I see, I'm actually going to let an entire family of squirrels in today just to try to balance out my karma.

Yeah, when you go back home to Portland, you're going to have to just like, you're going to have to house some squirrels there. Maybe a squirrel family. Absolutely. Pay it back. Yes.

Now, the other thing that I'm trying to sort of overcome this morning as we begin this thawing week is the fact that I am apparently not invited to be part of the Sten's Facebook page. I have had a pending request since last night. Wow. And I asked if I could please be part of the Sten's Facebook page so that I could be part of the Club for Eagle Soaring, which is a fun little tradition that we have usually during the thawn where different folks kind of like to check in and talk about ways that they're, you know, getting out and maybe getting a little exercise or doing, as I like to say, whatever their body allows for. And I have just been left on a frigging red by the Sten's Facebook page now. Who's running that these days? I couldn't tell you, Andrew, because I don't have access. I mean, talk about the cobbler's children going without shoes. Like, if there's anybody who I think should sort of be a first ballot Sten's Facebook member, it might be, you know, the guy who started the show around which this all revolves. But no, I am apparently not invited to be part of the Facebook situation.

You know, it's sort of a safe space. Like, one of the benefits of the Facebook page is we are locked. out of it so people can say that's ever they want that's a really good point so maybe that is part of maybe they're protecting you maybe they're cleaning house man what if they've been talking some s for the past like three years or I guess you were on there one year ago for the last time yeah the eagle soaring I did yeah we do anything that would upset people in the past year that they would maybe like talk about on the

I wonder if I failed the quiz you know there's a quiz to join it or there's a little survey questions are you a robot the survey is a what is your favorite drop Oh, what is your favorite drop? I just put this one down. I thought I'd throw a little hometown love to my mom.

I'll say, what's up, dog? Nice, love it.

And then they said, I think the question is something like, when did you, how did you sort of become interested in TBTL? Was it, no, for real. It was like, was it slowly over time or was there one specific moment? And I don't know why I wrote this, but I think I wrote, I think it was when Cairo fired us, which it doesn't even really make sense as an answer. And then you have to agree to the sort of terms of service, if you will, which is like, hey, don't be rude, which I think is a really reasonable sort of metric or litmus test. And I said, yes, I agree to not be rude. I said I did everything in my power to join the Sten's Facebook page, including going on a harrowing jog this morning.

Where did you end up going? Because you told yesterday we were driving around. I did literally jog by a casino this morning. That always seems to happen. Also, you smell like rubbing alcohol. Is there any reason for that? Actually, it might not be rubbing. No, it's drinking alcohol. No, it's all drinking alcohol. You were a little bit concerned. Yeah. We're staying at an Airbnb near here. And as we were driving down some roads that don't have any shoulders.

It's a beautiful, beautiful area around here. But you said, I do not like jogging on roads that don't have shoulders. I don't know what I'm going to do. What were your options?

They were limited. I jogged along a variety of roads that did not have any set-aside kind of safe area for people that were jogging or even riding their bikes. And I realized midway through that it's probably one of my most ingrained, you might call it, phobias. The idea that a car is going to hit me While I'm jogging along on the road It's not something that happens all the time It's probably not something that there's a very High probability will happen to me But it lives so large in my mind That this is going to sound like a humble brag But I did not want to get up As early as I got up this morning

What time did you get up? 5.30

And the reason I did that was because I wanted to try to jog along these roads When there were fewer cars

and like that's a bed we did not you me and john were kind of like chatting and kind of working on things and doing some show prep and chatting and i was trying to sign up for the facebook page too up until i know i i think i went down to my bedroom at midnight last night and i left you

guys still chatting so that's not much sleep uh it wasn't but that tells you how afraid of getting hit by a car i am that it got me out of bed and i guess it sort of worked i'm imagining that there would have been more cars if it would have been later on but the part that really got to me and made me realize that i've got to figure something out for tomorrow is i went up from kind of where we're staying and then along this pretty busy highway it's not a freeway you know legally you can't be on the side of the freeway in washington but it's a highway it's pretty active i went past the casino as i told you all i will i i did feel a certain what's the word sadness for folks that i saw leaving the casino at 6 30 in the morning and only because sadness and recognition exactly it's the sadness that only a person who's done that many times can really feel um but then i got out on this bridge and the bridge had a sidewalk on it that it was raised a little bit but it was about as wide as me like not a full-fledged like kind of wide sidewalk where two people can pass each other like it was only wide enough for one person and i was trying to take some pictures again see previous comments about eagle soaring as i'm doing these little jogs i'm also photo documenting it and i'm taking a picture of the water and i just feel i hear a sound behind me cars are going by me all the time but i feel something different happening and it's a low rumble that's then getting louder as it gets close to me and what goes past me is a semi truck that's pulling not one but two double long giant things and the wind and i'm a you know i'm a fairly stout individual the wind from this truck really physically moved my body i believe it and the guardrail of the bridge was about up to my hip and it was about 100 feet down to the water i don't like this and that was when i decided i got to find a new route for tomorrow and i did all of this so that i could be part of the club for eagle soaring on the facebook page and yet i'm

locked out i'm kind of locked out i we'll see you know i know some people in some pretty high places we'll see if we can uh get that sorted out in the meantime should we take this call i have something oh we've got the system is up and working yeah and i'm worried that it's gonna you know crash again at any minute so we should probably take the car all right yeah no let's let's make hay

while the sun shines oh okay we've even got i believe we've got a sound effect for this if i remember right so uh hi there welcome to tbtl you are the first caller of and maybe the last caller of this year's tb telethon who's this hey dummies i've done it again it's it's max

from brooklyn calling you this time from montgomery alabama whoa are you filming down there i'm uh actually doing i am playing cliff in a production of cabaret at alabama shakespeare

festival hey amazing congratulations yeah no kidding thanks oh i got another call

Oh, do we have a call waiting on this? What did that sound like for you, Max? This is a new function. I'm going to hold and accept this next call.

Okay, we're putting someone on hold. Max, please.

Oh, wait, no, I've accidentally put... Okay, okay, okay. Whoever that is needs to turn off the radio. Max, you're back. Okay, hi.

This is Max in Brooklyn on the line from Montgomery, Alabama. How's Montgomery, by the way?

It is incredibly hot down here. We had a couple of weeks of nice weather with some crazy thunderstorms in the middle. Now it is pretty brutal out there. Yeah. Getting up into the feels like 107 range.

Does that affect your performance in Cabaret? I assume the theater is air conditioned, but does it do something to a person's soul to just be in that kind of humidity all day, then trying to get into the part of Cliff?

Well, we are currently in tech rehearsals. Oh, okay.

Can you explain? I was almost a drama minor at the University of Washington, so I understand that kind of terminology. But for people like John who don't come from the theater background, could you explain what that means? Thank you.

Yeah, sure. So we spend a few weeks working in the rehearsal hall, putting the play together, figuring out where people are going to move, how we're going to deliver the lines. Blocking, I think is probably what you're talking about. and then we move into tech which is when we actually go onto the stage and we have lighting designers and sound designers and costume and wardrobe people um all helping us put together all of the design elements um to get it ready for an audience so they want to kind of see

they want to sort of see what it looks like in movement and and kind of in real life as it were

yeah exactly and so uh we just did the last two days were what are called 10 out of 12 which is a 10 hour day over a span of 12 hours um so they're they're long days in inside a theater

that's also how i've been described by certain blind dates a 10 out of 12 um have you ever

can i give you credit for adjusting that joke a little bit i was giving you a was it just last week that i was giving you a pretty hard time on the show for your your usual joke there is if you if i don't make you too self-conscious that's how that's how my love making skills have been described but i see that you've taken that yes and you've adjusted it i'm trying to make it more family friendly even though we had a bit of an awkward conversation there that you sort of took my my feedback to heart and i appreciate that you're you're an artist who's willing to hear

feedback i'm also trying to keep the show a little cleaner this week because we're raising money and And I think we have no more saying cuss words, guys. It's inappropriate and violent. Okay, that's the new standard for this week. Hey, Max, I have a real question, though, which is, have you ever, in the middle of a production, like a live production like this, forgotten your lines? And what have you done in that moment?

Absolutely. Actually, last summer I was doing a show, a production of Waiting for Godot, which I was playing the character of Lucky, who has this seven-minute-long speech that sounds unintelligible to the audience. But there are specific words that have to cue other people. Oh, right. And I went up in the middle of that, and there is no help. So I just started repeating myself.

You just went, there he is, and just pointed to where Godot was.

they're like i don't oh i wish here comes my friends think about the how that would have

impacted the internal logic of the rest of the play if godot just and for people who don't know

again people who are not as uh in tune with theater as i am waiting for godot is a parody of the movie waiting for guffman and it's kind of adapted for the stage yes so what happened

what happened nailed it thank you i just went into this crazy like you go into a state where you go how do i fix it how do i fix it and just try to like you guys do keep keep the tape rolling keep the keep the needle moving oh yeah exactly and then so i was just trying to repeat myself just enough to go okay where can i jump back into the stream where i can cue everybody else correctly and get back into the rhythm of the thing but it is it was both the most terrifying and the most exhilarating moment i think i've had on stage in about 10 years

and so you were able to get it going again like your brain sort of kicked in because obviously that stuff is rhythmic and muscle memory and it's almost like a song once you get a few of the lyrics it kind of flows right yeah exactly can I ask you another question about performing and

this is a serious question I have now that I'm thinking we have of course Luke and I are going to be doing a the first like live tbtl in front of a big audience in a long time that's coming up on July 29th you get tickets at tbtl.net where you can also watch the live stream by the way which I guess it's too late if you aren't already watching it for me to say that. Anyway, it's been a long time since I've done a show like that. But I remember the feeling that I have, like, you know, on the side stage or the green room right before we go out is a need to pee. And the problem is sometimes there's no pee.

Andrew, look at what I wrote down on my show sheet today. What are those words? It says pee or news? Pee or nervous. Okay, my handwriting is not great. right before we started today's show i mean we've done uh 3,979 of these i shouldn't be nervous i had an overwhelming feeling at like 9 59 a.m that i needed to or i guess it was 10 59 that i needed to pee which is exactly like when i was in little league and i was on deck and i could never tell if i needed to pee or if it was nerves and i think in this case it was nervousness yes i get that a

I get that pretty acutely, especially like I'm pretty chill today because, you know, I'm just a little bit of a more cool, cooler character than you. But no, like when I am ready to go on stage, of course, you do this for a lot.

all the time I get a feeling of like really needing to pee but also I can sort of tell that if I go in there I'm not going to be able to produce anything it's just my body doing this

max is any of this relatable absolutely relatable and I've got two words for both of you okay

beta blockers so those work I've heard about people taking those those are like anti-nervousness pills I thought it was going to be dipe yeah so

No, they were developed as a blood pressure medication, but they're used off-label for anxiety, and I have used them before auditions, like really high-stakes auditions sometimes.

Did you use some before this call? Very useful. Where would you rank calling in a TBTL?

My heart is racing, you guys. My heart is racing right now.

That's because of the other pills you're taking.

Yeah, because you're working too much. And I kind of feel like I need to pee, but I know I don't.

Well, Max, was there anything specific that you wanted to discuss with us? I just kind of bombarded you with a bunch of theater questions.

No, that's all right. I mean, mostly I want to just say congratulations on TBTL Independence Day. Thank you. And everybody should donate.

Thank you.

I will be clicking that donate button later today. and also any Alabama tens, come out to Montgomery to Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Come check us out. Say

hey. Yeah, absolutely. One last question Max. Do you need a TBTL lunchbox?

Because we have thousands. Yes, I can see that. I actually do. I have one at home in a place of pride. Yeah, but it's probably lonely.

What if we mailed you one in Montgomery and if you made a choice for Cliff that he's carrying a lunchbox in some of the seats. Hey, I wouldn't say no.

Could you do Death of a Salesman and carry this instead of a briefcase? Oh, that'd be great. That'd be great.

All right. Well, hey, Max, thanks for calling in and really good luck with the production, man. Break a leg.

Thanks. Good luck with the thong. Take care. Thank you. You know, Matt-

That was a strong opening call, by the way. That was good. We got a performer. I mean, honestly, we might want to just quit while we're ahead. That was one of the better calls we've had in a while.

You know, I am still struggling with what I mean, I should just say thank you. I mean, that's the easy answer. But I still struggle with what to say when people say congratulations, like, hey, congratulations on starting your own thing, because I and this is probably a very rude thing to say. But usually I will answer by saying, well, so far, all I've done is quit my job. I don't know if that's a congratulations. Like maybe it's hopefully congratulations at the end of this week when we've made ourselves fungible, if that's the right word.

I don't know if it is, but John used it a lot yesterday. what is what is your definition of fungible john as our vp of revenue operations and firearms

that last part makes me feel uncomfortable um as as in that role i say it's uh fungible is something that we will not take as donations it's cash only okay or credit okay but fungible to me means fake oh okay you i think you're thinking fugazi that's a fake like yeah that's because

my understanding this is this is where i classically step in it because now i'm going to try to like explain fungible i'm going to do it totally or wrong i i think of fungible as being money that is not being directly sent towards something but because the money that's so in other words like if i i didn't want to give uh i didn't want to give you ten dollars john so i give andrew ten dollars and then he gives the ten dollars to you that's and there's like

somehow that also is involving fungibility which is also which is often related to fungible was i no i think it's this basically it's uh it's impermanent impermanence is that the word

was it ken jennings who tweeted could god make a token so unfungible that even he could not

somebody made that joke on twitter i am looking up the dictionary definition of fungible and it doesn't help me too much it's uh if it's something is fungible then it is replaceable by another identical item mutually interchangeable so i think a non-fungible token an nft is something that can't be funged because it is it is unique right it had like the code imprinted and i don't know what the hell i'm talking about this is not a good place don't walk the funge yeah on uh um

You know, it's interesting, Andrew, when you're talking about trying to just accept, learn how to accept, you know, congratulations and compliments and things like that. I was upstairs yesterday. While you guys were working away down here, I decided to take a little break and go hang with my mom upstairs.

I mean, that's part of the project, though. I mean, we were in their home.

Yeah, no, and I was, I have to say, I was having a really nice time. But my mom had one of her many books that she picks up here and there, and it was a book about, like, resolving conflicts. Oh, did you? And she said, I can't. I got this – well, she was like, this book is blowing my mind. And one of the things I thought was interesting was it appeared that she was about seven pages into it. So it must have been a pretty useful opening seven pages. But then she started reading me the things, and they all seemed like bad ideas. Do you remember any? They were like – so it was about how to – I can probably go get the book. It's upstairs at some point.

Yeah, maybe we can do that tomorrow.

But it was an interesting thing because she was getting a lot out of it and she was excited about it. So I didn't want to like, I didn't want to yuck her yum, as we say, or rain on her parade. But the things that she was describing, and I knew the particular conflict that she was thinking of. And the things that she was, that this person had said very authoritatively in this book. Again, one of the things that my mom really enjoys is getting a book for free or nearly for free. And she goes, I got this for like 50 cents. And I was like, don't overpay for books that are about literally the critical disagreement in your life.

The fact, I would say that you could tell that it's not quite working because she screamed at you, don't touch my book. I'm getting a lot out of it.

But she just was, again, I mean, I thought it was overall a net positive for her because she was feeling like she was getting some help and some guidance. So that's a good thing. But I was thinking about, I know the situation that she was thinking of, and I was thinking, none of this is going to work. Nothing that's being described. Oh, and part of it, sorry, the reason I thought it was because one of the things was, like, it was like, learn how to take a compliment. That was like one of them, which I thought, well, if the person you're fighting with is complimenting you, things are going okay at that point.

Well, you've read chapters one through four.

And now they're complimenting you on how good you are at reading.

Like, you know, I can say that I have, and I don't know if this is rare or not, but I have literally never read any kind of a book that you would describe as a self-help book or even like a kind of a business-related improvement book.

Like What Color Is Your Parachute? Exactly.

I mean, have you ever sat down to read a book to say, like, this will make me better at X, Y, or Z, whether it's personal or professional?

No, and I really – I sort of regret that about myself. Like, I mean, being totally serious, like, I am a person who generally thinks that there is really little anyone else has to offer me about, offer to me about, like, how to live my life better. And my life is a disaster most of the time. If there's anybody who should be availing themselves of those things, it's me. And I'm somehow constitutionally inclined to not seek out that kind of advice or wise counsel. And I wish I was.

Yeah, for me, reading has always been a part of, like, it's a pleasure activity for me. It's more of like a hobby. It's a downtime thing. The idea of sitting down and, you know, we're, you know, here we are. We're starting our own business. I don't know if you know this, but there's a lot I don't know about business. Like what fungible means. Like what fungible means and whether or not I'm paying taxes on anything I earned this year. That's another question we got to ask our gun expert over here later. That means we've got income. But, like, it just seems so laborious and uninteresting to read any kind of a book, whether it's, again, whether it's self-improvement or, John, you seem like somebody who would.

read a variety of business books before coming on to this new position for my performance review

absolutely yes uh for real life uh no uh i definitely for you know been assigned excerpts and stuff over the years for uh by various bosses that have recommended like oh you should read this

thing by so-and-so did you take that as like an act of kindness or a professional mentorship or

do you take that as like kind of passive aggressive depends who who was saying it you know that kind

of thing yeah it could be real either way yeah i remember my boss uh mike arnold i'm just gonna

i'm gonna use his whole name here probably i'd put mike arnold in the top 20 most name checked

people on probably he was a pretty big influence on me honestly he led me towards a a a a pattern of thought about radio that led me to listening to tbtl in its earliest days look where look where

his all ended up in my parents basement surrounded by lunch boxes that nobody wants thanks mike and

by the way if you're watching the live stream and you're seeing all these lunch boxes around us this is like what the tip of the iceberg there's more there's there's even half i think this is

the tip of the lunch bird this is the tip of the lake there's there's a show title like we have i'm sorry i don't mean to cut you off andrew but just on the subject of all of this swag there are so many boxes still out in my parents yard on those pallets by the way they're full-on pallets oh Well, they are pallets. They're not skids. It's a Christmas miracle. Susie got her pallets. Somebody was asking me on Instagram about that. Because when I asked my mom if we could have all this merch dropped off that we never gave away when we were at APM, my mom's question was, can I keep the pallets?

Yes. And then I was scared that there were skids, not pallets, which is like half the wood. Anyway, now I realize my story isn't going anywhere. But the only kind of thing I can think of where a boss told an employee to read something. Well, maybe there were times with me and I ignored it. But I remember my boss

Mike Arnold gave my friend, Ben, who also worked at the radio station, a book on emotional intelligence. Whoa. Yeah. And I think that's maybe where I first like, this is like early, early 2000s. And maybe that's when I first was introduced to the idea of emotional intelligence. But I was like, wow, that's a, you know, that's something that, because that is a professional thing, but it's also a very personal thing.

Totally.

Right.

I feel like people, I think, tend to fall into one of two categories. Either they're the kind of person who is often reading books about emotional intelligence and talking about like what their Myers-Briggs score is and things like that. By the way, Addy works for a design firm and they did the rebranding for Myers-Briggs. Really? How does that even work? They switch around the letters? Yeah, they decided to call it Myers-Miggs. You know what? Myers-Miggs is just a stronger name. It cuts glass. But like there's, I feel like there are the kind of folks who just are given to that kind of introspection and trying to figure out like what is my soul's purpose in life And what are, how are ways that I can relate better to different people? And, and even when you're having a conversation with them, they'll be like, I'm an ENT something or other. And, and then there's the rest of us who are maybe a little less inclined towards that stuff. Although I will say that I do respect somebody being on a journey to try to know themselves and try to like relate better to other people.

Yeah, no, I'm definitely like, I, when I say that I've never read those books, it's not, I'm not, I'm not bragging on it. It's just, I just don't have the, I don't know. I don't have the constitution to read that kind of stuff. I would, for me, like reading, if it's not fun, it's work.

But you know what, Andrew, you know who would never do any sort of emotional introspection? Jeep, Andrew.

Just so you know, we do have somebody who's been on hold for about eight minutes. That's fine. They're enjoying this. Just enjoy it.

They need to hear about Jeep, Andrew. They really do. Okay. so uh yesterday i flew up from portland and john flew in from minnesota and we we connected up at sea tech airport and i was telling john on the rental shuttle that my greatest one of my greatest joys in life is uh because i am an avis wizard uh getting on the avis app and constantly trying to upgrade without paying any more money the rental car that i have been assigned and it and then john you said i think you said something like boy that really it's gambling that really fits in

with your personality yeah which is um considering your morning jog i think andrew and i need to have a conversation about your access to the tbtl bank accounts like but right but i mean because my jog

took me right past the casino yeah i mean that side but yeah past the casino though in his i did

That's true.

And then into, and then around. I went through the casino. But then back out the other side. Because what happens is, so I, for this, because again, we're a small business now, and we're now paying our own freight. I rented the cheapest car that Avis would rent me. Now, if this was a CBS shoot, totally different sitch. But I rented something pretty cheap. And it's also Fourth of July week, so it's like, you know, prices were pretty inflated. and then though what happens is so i have this whole thing on the app where it goes basically like here's your car i know we had some sort of hyundai type product and then it goes you have a button that says change vehicle and you can hit change vehicle and then it goes like huh what i mean that operation at ctac is so big that avus operation cars are just constantly being returned they're being like vacuumed out or whatever and they're they're constantly rotating in and out of the available supply and so because the rental car shuttle at ctac is a living nightmare i like to spend my time just hitting change vehicle and then seeing what comes up and then i will incrementally work my way up so what happens like slots sort of it's slot so fun my friend which is an actual casino in las vegas i can't take credit for that uh by the old circus circus um but so so but this is a whole process by the way and this is a pro tip for any of you who are out there trying to fund your rental car um you so what i do is i'll go uh change vehicle And then it'll show me a car that's one tier above the car that I've paid for, but it's not a car I want.

That's the thing. Often I feel like when you upgrade in this, and you obviously, who am I talking to here? But in my extremely limited experience in rental car things, the cars that are upgrades are cars that I personally don't want. Like a banana yellow Camaro. Right, exactly.

Or some sort of bigger SUV or something. Totally. So, but this is why, you know, this is why it's a whole process because what I'm doing is I'm escalating the value of the vehicle that I now have for the future trade. So I change vehicle and I get into another tier of vehicle that I don't want that one, but I accept it. And then as soon as it spits out the like, here's where your parking spot is, I go change vehicle and then see what else now is in that next class of vehicle. Well, maybe I wait five minutes. Depends on how long the shuttle is taking. Well, I mean, I think I really hit it out of the park yesterday because—

We managed to go from some sort of Hyundai product up to a friggin' 2023 Jeep Wrangler Willie. Willie? That was a much better. We already have a Willie impression on the show, and it's you being Alf. And then I went with a weird different- What were you doing? I don't know. But- Willie?

Am I getting further? I'll keep practicing.

Andrew, you have fallen in love with- I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but would it be an overstatement to say you're leaving genevieve in the life you've known so that you can drive the country in this

hardtop convertible jeep willy i gotta be careful because i keep falling in love with rental cars that you rent me remember the last rental car that i rented was a was a mirage which literally was a mirage it looked like a car but in the light it's sort of like a certain way it disappeared and i decided to drive that through the mountains to denver that didn't work out so well so you know one year ago um you and i drove to the denver airport on a holiday weekend i believe that was memorial day weekend possibly and uh and finagled i guess is the word i'm looking for is probably what the courts will call it to get it when it goes to trial to rent a better car to get me back home to seattle and we got a kia was it a soul or something else it was a kia something man and i loved that key and i came home and i told genevieve was really mad for some reason i don't know why she was going around telling our friends that she was mad at me because i wanted to get a kia now she's like we're not getting a kia i'm like i like it i don't know why jenny was anti-kia i'm not i'm not sure what's up with that it was a great car um and now you've rented this this jeep really and uh and you've been letting me drive it and it is it is a blast i love this

thing the tires are real tires you pulled a move this morning that was honestly one of the more bitchin things i've ever seen you do during our many years of friendship and working together which was was when i gave you a big hug in the morning and gave you a compliment it was and you tussled my hair i said you're like wake up sleepy head um it was when we were trying to get onto this main by the way the same pretty busy highway i was jogging along earlier yeah can you imagine jogging and somebody like me is tearing out into traffic but you like basically we are trying to merge or trying to do a left turn onto this very busy roadway and uh there was the briefest of windows and then it was going to be like another 20 minutes of all this kind of cross traffic and what did you i forgot what you said you were like hold on to your butts i don't think i said that probably no but you you said something like buckle up no it was like something that like i feel like uh what a cowabunga i feel like it's something kurt russell might have said in big trouble in little china okay you're like this is gonna take crackerjack timing you just you punched it dude you friggin punched it and like i was like pinned to the back of the seat and you just like you're feeling the g you tore out into traffic and i it was safely i knew i was

familiar with the vehicle at this point i knew that i had the pickup like i couldn't have pulled that in the old scion i loved the scion no disrespect to my scion i missed that car i parked next to a scion exactly exactly like my old scion the other day and i had some real feelings luke but i believe this was not a move that the scion could have done and again i don't

It was not unsafe at all, but it was edgy, and I liked it. What was it like in the backseat, John?

I think the phrase was, I'm going for it, or something like that. Maybe that's it. A little more pedestrian.

I like this is going to take Cracker Jack timing, though. Let's just go with that for the record. Sorry.

From the backseat, I heard something about Cracker Jacks. And then I just, like Luke, fell into my seat, and we just safely merged into traffic.

I was like, you really got the cobwebs out. Was it on cobwebs? No, it was great. Andrew, honestly, it was awesome. You felt a stirring? Something inside me changed fundamentally, and we'll never— Fungimentally. Oh, ooh. Fungimental change.

I like that as a possible show to tell you. I think maybe Let the Fung Begin. Oh, yes. I've already written it in my document, so try getting me off of that one.

Do we still have a phone caller waiting? Yeah, we have a caller waiting for us. All right. And then after this, we have to actually do what we're calling the pitch, which is where we're reminding people what they can get for the thon. Anyway, here's the official sound effect. Hi, welcome to the TBTL-a-thon, your caller number two.

Hello, are you still on the line? I'm going to say that maybe somebody got sick of waiting 16 minutes.

Wait, but the little number was still... I don't know, they were gone. You know what, that's actually great, because I want to play this sound effect. Hello, and welcome to Top Story. And remind everyone that our top story, of course, today is the fact that this is day one of the TBTL-a-thon, and we do have uh some uh we think pretty cool thank yous for folks uh who have been donating and and by the way i mean this is day one but the the website has been live since friday and john some pretty incredible stuff has already been happening over the unprompted by us basically yeah no it's uh Thank you.

Proof of concept that the people that listen to the show are the best humans in the world. And, you know, we've definitely, I think, on Friday, we're talking about Barry snuck on early and donated. Broadcast Barry. And then our friend Lauren down in Florida, Jacksonville, right, who has been on the Facebook page, you know, challenging other people to donate and stuff. And so there's this real excitement and some money's trickling in.

I thought that trickling. Wait, that's not the word I was hoping to hear. Flooding? Flooding. Well, you know, yeah. Like flash flooding in. Like, dangerous levels of money.

Listen, John is good at his job. John says that money is flooding in. There's less of a reason for folks to donate. Keep it modest. Okay, okay.

Now, listener Lauren, again, if I had access to the Facebook page, I could see this for myself, but I don't currently. Listener Lauren is doing something amazing, like you said, John, which is not only donating, which is incredibly sweet, but then also matching donations and such. And I thought Lauren's greatest contribution to the show would be when she called in to explain how they measure the length of the toilet paper at the facility that she worked at in Florida. Do you remember that call, Andrew? Oh, yeah.

Lauren is great at talking on the radio. I get a little threatened by Lauren's story sometimes. Yeah. Because at the time, she was working for a supply store of some sort. Right. And they had to sometimes measure.

Like, they had to double check that it was like. that the i can't remember if it was like the paper towels or the toilet paper might have been the toilet paper if something was if one of these rolled up paper products which were like industrial size if they were really as long as the company that was selling them said so they take one out

like a sample and roll it on out sounds like so much fun now you wanted to give a caveat though

right was with you know uh not you know no pressure for for lauren because she put that challenge out a couple days ago i'm not saying that's still an active thing so i want to put her on the hook legally binding yeah but it's just really encouraging and awesome to see folks the community really coalesce and and support the show together and and we've got some some

cool thank yous um for for people like uh i don't have all of the numbers right in front of me but i do know that we have i think it's a 25 a month uh anybody who's able to do that or go north of that we've got the the commemorative tbtl coin and now john you because you kind of were instrumental and getting these things created, you also have some coins that I think the coin makers sent you as like some kind of comparisons.

Yeah, some samples. They're a little ASMR, right? Oh, nice. Here, that's the coins.

But like, can you... I'm sorry. Andrew, do you have the special coin

that we're both obsessed with? I got one here that features Todd Stout, founder and president of the Partnership Trust of the First Watch. I don't know what First Watch is. It doesn't matter. But we have a picture of Todd Stout, founder and president here. I wish we could have gotten a bunch of Todd Stout coins made to give it away.

I honestly think I love where we ended up. And thanks to listener Eric for helping us design the TBTL commemorative coin. But if it would have been the Todd Stout coin, I mean, there's an argument to be made that it would have been maybe even more popular. But anyway, the thing about these coins is that they have absolutely no financial value. You will never be able to trade them or sell them for anything of any worth except for cred. They're not feasible. They really are non-fungible and non-functional. These are fungible.

I thought fungible means you can exchange it for goods or service.

But non-fungible tokens. Non-fungible lives on the blockchain.

Okay, let's call them not fungible.

Not fungible.

Agreed. I have no idea what I'm talking about. I don't know. I'm sorry. But the point is these coins are not ever going to be worth thousands of dollars. what they will be worth is years from now when you're at some tbtl event and we've managed to grow the audience and we're like maybe even doing the show from the upstairs of my parents house oh we've come out of the basement dream and you'll just be like hanging out and uh and and somebody will be like well how long you been listening to tbtl or what's your association with the show and you'll pull this coin out and you'll say i saved tbtl i i the only people who have this coin are the people that donated during this first tbtl-thon of the next phase of the show where if we don't raise enough money by the end of the week we literally all have to go get different jobs i'm

being serious that's a very true story and i want to say specifically too like when we talked about a commemorative coin this is like kind of a silly thing because again this might be something that you want to just kind of display somewhere or or hide in your secret safe but like the this entire show i have been treating this coin it's like a substantial like a metal coin and it's like a fidget i've been worrying it as my grandma i've been worrying todd stout's face this whole time and it's very satisfying yikes yeah i know that's actually so we're doing that and also and i think

that's like with a 15 level that's actually the coin is the coin is 10 oh okay the 10 look at that

yeah today only the coin is at the 10 a month level we're having a fire sale i should am i being brave for the fire. The other thing, too, though,

So is the Week in Review, right, which is this new video component that we're going to roll out. What level is that at, John? That is 25. Okay, so you'll get the coin. You'll get all the stuff at 25, including Week in Review access, which is a kind of a recap video that we're going to make each week. It'll probably be a rotating cast that will be a reflection on and a response to whatever has gone on on the show that week. So we're still going to do the Hey Dummies video. and I would be shocked if you're hearing this right now and you're not subscribed to the new TBTL newsletter but if you haven't done that go to tbtl.net as well but yeah it's going to be this we think really fun interesting show featuring us and friends of the program going over like what happened this week on TBTL on video you can see our faces

I like the idea though that sometimes it might not be I sort of feel like sometimes it might just be you and me cutting it up and talking if we can't book a guest that week but sometimes it just might be you and one other person or you and John, and then eventually kind of like bring on Friends of the Show. Maybe my mom. I'll say, what's up, though? How amazing would that be?

Because I know she would not listen to any of the programs, but that would not stop her from responding.

That would be very – but I actually foresee a day where it could be like a couple of listeners, just like we give them the keys to the castle. I don't know. Like we haven't started doing this yet. I think it's going to evolve over time. This is not something that – this is something brand new that we're trying, and we're going to see how it goes. I think we're going to start it maybe in August, but also to be clear, every other piece of TBTL content that you enjoy now is still available to you. This is just something special for those of you who can be as generous as to donate at the $25 a month level.

And lots of people, I mean, not a flood, but, you know, something maybe hopefully a little north of a trickle. Lots of folks have been, you know, upping their donation a little bit. We've been hearing from them, and it's just very heartwarming. And, again, people are writing such nice notes. The thing about this time of year for us is it's both terrifying because it's like we have to sing for our supper once a year and so humbling because of the very, very nice things that people are saying and also people who are donating it. We've got this $100 a month level, which we've never tried before, but we're just hoping that if it's something that works in folks' finances, that's something they might want to do. For that, you get the whole schmear. You get everything and a ticket to the 4,000th episode, and you can hang out in the green room with us. If you've already bought a ticket to that We'll just refund your money for that ticket So don't stress about that But yeah we're again We are I'm Andrew you have been maybe it's just Jeep Andrew But you and actually John I'll throw you in on this Both of you I think I don't want to say uncharacteristically but both of you have been Really positive And confident about the idea That we can actually raise enough money this week To make this the full time job Of three people and I'm glad you guys are being strong for me because maybe it's being in my parents' basement I'm, you know I've still got a little apprehension around the whole thing, but you both seem like pretty confident

I'm not confident in this phone line the person who was on hold for 16 minutes says that they're on hold again and they're getting a fuzzy signal from us I don't know what that's all about, I don't know should we try to take that, let's just try to take it anyway, sorry about the no hoy hoy hey, who's on the line here, okay hold on we're gonna do this

we have Hey, can you hear me okay? Hello, you're on TBTL. Oh, I've always wanted to say this. Can you turn your radio down? Please turn your radio down.

Please turn off the stream. All right. Do we have a call? Okay, well, I just think we can all agree that this part of the show has gone really well so far today.

Did you get any? Did you get? Listen, we had a really nice call from Max. I'm sure we'll figure it out with whoever this person that keeps trying to call in. I will say this. If you call in and you're put on hold, You should be able to hear what we're doing. Maybe this person was having some audio issues.

This person said it was fine for a while, then it went fuzzy right before. I'm getting text messages from them. Anyway, let's try somebody else maybe, and we can figure out on the fly whether or not it's on our end or that person's end. So anyway, but I would like more. Call it 206-414-8285.

If you would like to have a lunchbox, you'll move to the top of the line. That's really the main thing we're trying to do here. Raise money for TBTL and get rid of some of these lunchboxes. did they misorder the lunchbox like i did they order i mean did they did someone add a zero or did we just like end up with a lot of leftover lunchboxes john well so not to uh pass the blame

but this was before my time at apm but i will say honestly torch the place no no no no no friggin cares no nothing because we got some apm employees still who are listening i know are definitely fans of the show right i don't know annie and uh joshua no annie weren't annie joshua we we are no longer colleagues we are relying on you give us money but but the legend is that something to do with ordering minimums and stuff to like i see you know something or other well i'll tell you who's impressed with these things my actual parents my mom is like so i gave her two lunch boxes and it was like i gave her uh you know a new maserati or something like she is absolutely delighted by these so i'm gonna call that a win what do you think andrew are we gonna should we let's try this i try this i keep on getting calls

that people are hanging up on so i don't know if that means that they are getting some um Ahoy, ahoy. Hi there. You're on TBTL. Can you hear us? Oh, they just hung up. We might be having some issues with this part of the show. I don't know exactly why. Should I restart my computer again? Why not? Third time's a charm.

Do you think, did you get a sense of why the computer is shutting on and off?

No, this started happening maybe midweek last week. And I was like, well, that's just sort of a glitch. But this is not, but I want to, it's pretty important.

I want to clarify, this is not the computer you bought through a crack in the door on Aurora.

No, no, this is my favorite computer. I've had this. I bought this as a new computer about two or three years ago. It's like, this is my main computer. This has all of my audio on it. Like, this is not, like, this is, I don't know if you have a special computer in your life, Luke, but this is my special computer, and I'm a little, you know, I'm a little defensive about it. Not to you, but to people like Genevieve and other haters. You know, I like to speak to the haters. Yeah, sure. That's kind of something I like to do. Yeah, totally. But I don't know why it was just shutting down. Like, it is a bad thing for a live broadcast medium. It is bad when one of the computers.

I'm sorry, I didn't see you there. I was too busy blocking out the haters.

That is like the main source of communication with our audience just shuts down randomly. That is, I can see that being problematic.

I think we'll get through. Again, we have had rougher first episodes of the Thawne week just based on all the technical stuff. Sure, sure. So I think this is going to be an amazing week. What folks cannot see, if you're watching this on YouTube or whatever, is that just out of the frame is my mom's beloved karaoke machine, which I promise you we are not going to get through this week without breaking that bad boy out.

Yeah, we have to use that at some point. It's different than I – everything in this basement has sort of a vintage and kind of a down-home feel. I mean, I'm literally looking at a wooden rocking horse across the room there. We have a little, like, kind of a wicker basket. We have an old school lamp. You know, it definitely has basement charm. You know that I love basements. I'm going to have a basement guy. And this has the feel of kind of a well-lived, well-loved home's basement.

I would say that nothing describes my parents' kind of decor more than eclectic.

Yeah, I would say it's eclectic. But then you have that microphone machine over there, which, again, is off camera. We'll bring it in. But it looks like something out of Mystery Science Theater 3000. And it seems like one of the robots that didn't make the cut.

It's a really good description. But what was my mom saying yesterday when we showed up? And I was like, oh, mom, the karaoke machine. I think she was saying to you something like, I just don't like to have to read the words.

Oh, that's right.

And I thought, well, that's a big part of karaoke is reading the words.

I heard that you're a big, you and Luke are both big karaoke people. But I guess she only likes to do the songs where she knows all of the words, like without having to read along.

Which is primarily the song Stand By Your Man by Tammy Wynette, which I believe she became aware of off of the soundtrack of Sleepless in Seattle. And I think that she thinks that she is living in like a Tammy Wynette-esque universe with my father. And I had to explain to her yesterday that I think the things that were happening for Tammy Wynette in her relationship with George Jones were much more troubling than Walt falling asleep while they're watching pirated BBC content. I don't know if that is.

That's not what that song is about? Wait, hold on. That's not what was going on in Tammy Wynette's life.

Another thing that I just wanted to check in with both of you on was your review of a quintessentially Northwest dining experience that you both got to enjoy yesterday for the first time. I mean, the idea that I got to share your first time for both of you at a Red Robin is just amazing to me. Especially since I've lived out here for a while. Yes, I'm surprised that you and Veeves didn't at some point find yourself hungry and at the mall or something and stroll into a Red Robin. John, you live in the Midwest where I guess they don't have them, but we got into town yesterday. My parents were still at church. We were all a bit hungry, and so we rolled into the Red Robin in Silverdale. And the very first thing I did when we sat down was, almost before the waitress could even ask us what we wanted to drink, I just said, cheese sticks because that's one of my very favorite things to get at red robin you said

cheese sticks for those who it's oh i ran that together it sounded like chase sticks or something i don't know but also um uh yeah so you said cheese sticks which i see can i just set this up in a way like please there the other day vives and i it was like actually a year ago but don't worry about it.

year ago when we were moving into our new place we um were working late into the night on some home projects and then we were in our new neighborhood but we weren't staying there for the night but we were just it's just like that moving feeling of being really tired at the end of a long day feeling good about it but then also just being kind of famished and we tried going to one restaurant the 25th the 25th street um uh bar and grill 125th street bar and grill but they were closing early because they didn't have enough business um and so we're like i don't know let's just keep driving north so then we drove to a place called sherry's now sherry's is another like kind of chain restaurant that like in ohio it would be sort of like a friendlies i think or something like that or maybe even a bob's big boy or a bob evans or a perkins or something and so like you know when i think of red robin i'm just like yeah it's like red robin it's like sherry's it's like friendlies i don't know and i think that those places have unlimited uh bottomless steak fries andrew you would always talk about red robin as something very special and i never quite got it and i think i'm starting to understand a little bit more that red robin isn't just another friendlies or a bob evans or what have you it's a it's a culture and it's very um specific

to the northwest this is where it was started i believe and it's like if you grew up here you you went there a lot and there's all these little kind of quirks like when we walked in i I was trying to explain that when I was growing up, the decor of most Red Robins was too many pictures. Like you've heard of too much tuna. That's too much tuna. This is too many pictures. Like every wall, every square inch of every wall was covered with thousands of different framed, different size, like posters. And sometimes it'd be like a, a world war two plane, but like the bird from Red Robin is flying it. I believe the bird's name is red. Like anyways, very kitschy, but you know, the, the big thing was uh the cheese sticks and also the bottomless uh steak fries well right after i said cheese sticks and by the way that i said cheese sticks um the the very nice server said i just have to let you know we have different cheese sticks now and i was i mean i was i was pretty much i was rocked by that news because like and i spent probably the rest of the meal talking about it i'm sure it never got boring at all for me going i just don't understand it i just don't get why would you it's one of their most popular well and then when she came back i

was like were they popular and she was like yes they were she was very sympathetic to your cause like that could have been one of those things where we're engaging the server at a level that maybe they're not they're not willing to engage at which is fair right maybe they don't want to match our energy out exactly outrage over changing a a cheese stick like that you could say dude i don't know i just work here you know you could sort of get that attitude but this server was really tuned in like she as they say really took to the culture and so she was like i know they don't they had the special crunch to them and i'm looking at the cheese sticks on the menu and they're like cheese twists now and i do eat mozzarella sticks they look they look good to me i'm just like hey let's just bring these babies out dip them in some marinara and see what we got

cooking i just wish they would have brought us more different kinds of sauces oh my god it was a sauce bonanza it was a sauce fest it was like welcome to the sauce somebody invited sauce gardener and someone else invited from the mariners it was that that that server must have brought out i don't know 12 different kinds of things that for us to dip the fries and the cheese sticks in what let me just ask you this and this is overall between the cheese sticks the burgers that y'all got the whole thing the service the too many pictures be honest with me what was your sense of the place after hearing me talk about it particularly you andrew for like so long two noobs and by the way we're seeing on the text line that they do have red robin in indiana I would prepare yourself though they may be working with cheese twist which is they're fine but they're not the same is my point what is y'all's review of Red Robin after all the hype?

Can I jump in here John? You've been talking about this for so long Luke and I just never quite got it and I gotta say

Now are you answering as yourself or Jeep Andrew?

Jeep Andrew is this Andrew this Andrew is Jeep Andrew they're unfungible in every way I think I get it now I understand especially you don't have to say that for me I'm not fishing for that first of all okay a couple of things first of all you kind of talking about how there was like the second we walked in I don't even know that your second foot had actually made it past the entryway before you were like where do you see all the too many pictures on the wall and then you come in and immediately you're just like there aren't enough pictures there's just enough pictures they've gone

with a new kind of like decor and like to me i'm just like okay i mean i don't know there's some pictures um and but i think i if it had that kind of a culture almost like a when i was a kid going into a tj friday had a very specific vibe you know like crap all over the wall signs that say dallas parking only for some reason you're like i'm in westlake ohio or dallas cowboys parking only or whatever you know what i mean they had all that brick about brack um so i understand that Maybe that is the past of Red Robin, that it's not just like kind of a – I'm going to say the word anodyne again because you were impressed with me the other day when I used it. And I think maybe we just got to give up on phone calls. People are calling and hanging up, which makes me think we're feeding them bad sound. But anyway, I think that I get it now, and I will say this. The server asked me when I ordered a burger, and I got the royal – I got a royal burger, I think. No cheese, please. Fried egg on top of it. Yes, exactly. Here's the deal. She said, okay, is well done okay? Yeah, that was odd. And I was like, oh, no, is that your baseline? Well done. And I'm not somebody who's like snobby about meat. Like, if you like your food well done, get your food well done. Like, I don't think there's some right way to enjoy food. But for me, well done is not okay. And so I said, well, can I get it medium rare, which is how I usually get my burgers. That's several steps down from that. And she's like, yeah, no problem. But then it was in my head. I'm like, this burger, if they think that well done is okay, like, this is going to be rough.

Like, first of all, first they have the right amount of pictures. Now they want to cook my burger well done. Luke, great dang burger. Oh, nice.

Not only was the burger cooked specifically, as I asked, I can't explain this, but, like, the flavors were separated out enough. In other words, like, it wasn't just a mushy, gross burger. Like, you could taste the egg. The burger is one of the better burgers I've had in a while. Wow. they did she started listing uh listing all this um sauce that she could bring out at one point i said just bring out all your sauces and i said it may be kidding on the square but they brought out all the trays and trays of various firecracker sauce i was a big fan of yeah um barbecue as well as um as well as buffalo sauce i was just like my experience there was really great the only thing well I'll say two things first of all I wanted onion rings when I see onion rings on the menu I usually get onion rings but I knew there was a whole culture around the bottomless fries and I really got the fries for you Luke and they were good I'm glad I got them but I was scared you're like if I order I would have been like that's not what you come here no I would have definitely

left you behind John and I would have driven the willy down to the Airbnb and you would have been

on your own dude no andrew left behind that's right i'm gonna restart my computer see if we can take some phone calls uh this is just going really great but anyway the other thing that i wanted to say which i think is interesting that you're sort of skipping over you often will sort of like after a little adventure that we have sorry i didn't let john answer no but yeah john

what was your take yeah my takeaway was it was uh service is great the sauces are great i was a big fan of the honey mustard uh and the burger was super solid i got the bonsai burger which i saw somebody in chat says it's their favorite. That was definitely really good.

They even warned you that it was really messy. They said you want to cut it in half. Can we wrap it up for you?

The service was so good. I was reminded in chat, and you guys kind of alluded to it. There are Red Robins. There's some in Minnesota and elsewhere in the country, so I apologize. It's not where I come from. But I like it.

But what I was going to say is, Luke, you talk about these adventures, and they're often from your point of view, and they describe my behavior in a way that sometimes I kind of don't realize I'm putting something out there. you really skipped over a big part of the restaurant experience, I think, which was the negotiation and you refusing to take no for an answer about which table I gotta say here's the deal, we come in and the host sits us down at a table instead of a booth, and I am with you, I have the initial reaction like I don't want to be in the middle of the room, why would I want to be in the middle of the room? There are booths all around us, or maybe booths, I'm not sure booths or booths they're all all around us yes and i want one of those two and you say hey can we sit right over there and you point to a booth that is as close as i am to john's far off right

now six feet away five feet away for people that are watching this on youtube first of all if you're trying to call in sorry we're having some technical times um but if you're watching this you can see how close john and i are i think it was actually closer yeah like we were sitting at a table and i could have reached out and touched the booth and i asked could we well i actually asked i think i asked you andrew i was like would you prefer a booth because i definitely would rather have been in a booth for some reason by the way why is that why does it just seem better it's more it there's

i felt exposed in the middle of the room i like i just i booths are nice it's uh my friend once described um i think it was a bar or a restaurant or maybe it was like a steakhouse that had the really tall red booths like a you know really tall and he said that he we walked in he's like these are booths you could plan a murder in oh You And I was just like, oh, wow, that is – but I knew – you know what – yeah, go ahead.

Can I throw a wrench in the booth talk? So I like a booth because it is a plush seat, which is nice, right? Yes, yes. But I think this is – as now TBTL is now a three-headed operation here. Yes, indeed. You guys are so used to operating as a two-person team. A booth is optimal for two people. You know what? Were you a little uncomfortable? No. Well, see, at first I was like not posed to it, but I'm a big guy. And I take up space, and I want to be aware of that. and when you guys are pushing at the booth I'm like okay who am I gonna like squeeze I didn't want to make either of you uncomfortable by squeezing on top of you in the booth but instinctively I guess because you're both so sweet you sat together next to each other and it was actually really adorable we do that even when you're not there Luke likes to cut

my food for me I preach to it sometimes it's tough no but you know John that is actually like that is such an interesting thing that you just said because you're absolutely right we are now a three person operation We are the three people that work for TBTL, and Andrew and I, particularly on these TBTL-a-thon adventures, oftentimes if we're driving a van somewhere or hitchhiking or doing whatever we're doing, it's a two-person operation. I think we instinctively operate that way, but now it's like there's a third person, and this is just one example, but that's going to be a new way or a new thing that we're going to have to all – like Andrew and I are going to have to consider and think about is just the fact that this is a three-person operation.

I had a two-person operation. We had a meal in Portland, and we sat in a booth, and it was perfect, but it was like a horseshoe booth. Yeah, that was different. At the Dunkfer. Yeah.

Oh, I was so hungover for that meal. I do appreciate you getting me my own bed at the Airbnb. That was nice of you to consider at least three beds. That was nice.

I believe, yes. I believe that part, we were in pretty good setup for that. But like, so I asked the server, I asked the host person, I said, could we just be in that booth? and she said it's actually somebody else's section which i couldn't wrap my mind around because it was so close to where we were sitting i wasn't asking to move across the room and so then uh i just said okay and then that host left and then i think our server came yeah and i asked our server could because i this is i mean this won't be a surprise to the listeners but as a people know that i'm sort of pushy and what i've learned is that like if the first person in that situation says no probably the server is going to be like yeah what you can kind of do whatever you want they are trying to you know make it so you have a nice time and they probably don't want to get in an argument and if the request is not unreasonable which i didn't think it was usually they'll kind of go okay so the next the server comes out and then uh i go could we move to that booth and then

what were you thinking at this point the host gave you a really definitive no yes because the host sat us down a table you point to a booth that is we could almost touch it so close and they say no you know that's a different section and you're like how could that be a different section and you're like are you sure you kind of you you asked to follow up like are you sure it's like right there can we get another server and they're like no no this is sorry you that that that section is closed and then they leave and then you're like you're like that rule doesn't make sense and this is a very burbankian thing like that rule doesn't make sense like you don't i mean it is it's like you don't you don't know what their you know what their process is or whatever and you're just kind I'm like, well, that rule doesn't make sense for me, and I want my cheese sticks in the booth. And I don't want them to be twisted. And you're like, when the server comes, I'm going to ask them if we can move. And I've got to say, at that moment, somebody who maybe takes no too easily for an answer, but also it's a burger at Red Robin, whatever.

Well, I wanted your experience to be perfect because neither of you had ever been there.

You've got to be right next to me for a little bit. You've got to be right next to me. And so the server comes out, and then you say to the server, hey, can we sit in that booth right there? And the server looks a little concerned, like, oh, I got to go, I don't know, let me go ask. And I'm like, oh, shit. She's just going to go ask the person that told us no twice. And now it's going to be – I got to say, at that moment, I'm just like, oh, God, I don't want to do this anymore. Oh, I didn't realize that the other server does come back and says, yeah, it's fine. And then we get a different server who's working that section. And I don't know if we kind of like we ended up getting really good service from that person. So maybe they're like, these guys are troublemakers. We better treat them right or we're going to get a bad Yelp review. And Red Robin is we're going to have to change the cheese sticks again. Oh, I like the way that the server that we ended up having kept blaming corporate. I loved that. I don't know. Talk to corporate. It was funny. But anyway, we can't say that anymore. I guess on this show because we don't have corporate. Yeah, that's right. I know. We have to blame everything on John now. I'm cool with that. But anyway, yeah. So it ended up, I do think, I guess I got to say, I am glad you pushed through. I enjoyed the booth experience. John, you got to sit on one side by yourself. So hopefully you were comfortable. I didn't feel crowded with you, Luke. I'm glad we got the booth. But I will say there was a moment where I was kind of like, can we just take no this time? Well, we need to work out a.

system next time when i'm pushing it to that point where it's becoming kind of like a little weird or just like you know it's gonna make the experience less enjoyable for one or both of you we need some kind of a uh you know i don't know some kind of a safe word that's like tippy toe like you're like you're just you're doing this like like okay luke let's maybe what you could say is maybe this is one of those times we should take no for an answer yes that's the direct that's the direct approach do you want to try to yeah here we do i think i think yes for an answer on

the calls the same person who's been texting with me and trying to trying to get on the line for the past half hour my god is on the line and i think can hear us now so let's see god this better be a

good call welcome to tbtl hey what's up guys it's ivan from amsterdam what's up dude hey how you

guys doing i gotta say i'm really enjoying the 8 p.m live stream i could get used to this i hope It's like a weeknight syndication thing for me.

That was my first question. I was wondering what time it is there.

We were once Japan's number one morning show because of time differences, and now maybe we're Amsterdam's number one 8 p.m. program. How's it going? You moved over there. Well, on your way.

It's been going well. How are you guys? Congratulations.

Thank you. I feel like our lives are really going in different directions. You are seeing the world in Amsterdam, and we are seeing my parents' basement with a bunch of lunchboxes.

but i am seeing no red robins around here tragically were you a red robin guy when you were in seattle oh yeah big time the the the problematically named bonsai burger was a favorite

you know i was wondering great point uh yesterday when i was hyping it to john as i was saying it i was thinking i don't think that is the proper name for that anymore i would be shocked if

they're still calling it that no they were absolutely 100 you gotta be right there when

you're reading that can confirm because that's what uh that's what that's what john got the

banzai burger what ivan i have a question what has been the uh kind of the thing you didn't expect about moving to amsterdam like what's what's kind of what's what's been something that developed

that you weren't expecting um i mean this is kind of a boring answer but it is a very big expat bubble over here so you can kind of come here and sort of feel like you haven't really

left home oh really are you trying to get out of that bubble by like engaging with with dutch

culture trying to but the thing is like there's a lot of other internationals not just americans and brits but from pretty much all over europe that are all kind of hanging around sort of half-heartedly doing the same thing and just ending up kind of flocking to each other instead

are you trying to is dutch is the language right i mean am i am i making a fool of myself here the

language is also called dutch do you speak dutch uh worse than i did two years ago when i first moved here you're actually regressing that's hard to do yeah it's it's the only answer i can give to the passport inspection people when when i come in and they see that i have a residence permit and they you know ask me if i speak netherlands and i'll throw out that wisecrack because that's the only thing that i can say without sounding uncool and you did you move over there for work or just to have an adventure um i mean work got me here but but i think the idea was to kind of you know expand the horizons because rachel and i you know we've been we had been living together in uh seattle for you know as long as we knew each other and hadn't done much in the way of international travel so this was an opportunity uh to not to not do it on somebody else's dime but at least have somebody get us to the launching pad are how are you feeling as being the partner of a famous author in rachel uh i mean super proud of her but uh funnily enough she has a new book coming out tomorrow so she's feeling like you're sharing she's feeling your shared anxiety of having like a big endeavor launching on the week of 4th of july well let's plug that yeah what's the name of the book uh it is uh business or pleasure is what and what is the sort of topic

is it a business book because we need one of those we've recently realized that we've done

no prep on i guess a pleasure part down yeah uh well i guess uh elevator pitch is it's a story about a a writer who has made her way just ghostwriting for other people and never getting any kind of byline credit and she ends up having a one-night stand with this guy who's like this former sort of like werewolf sci-fi show teen heartthrob actor uh who is now just doing like the comic-con circuit and they end up having a one-night stand and then the next day she gets an offer from his agent to ghostwrite a book about him and goes to the meeting not knowing she's about to meet the guy that she uh hooked up with the previous night is any of this

based on your real relationship the two of you absolutely not oh okay no but I do have a real

question so I don't know if you heard this episode that Genevieve was on no I will let me say I want to I want to I don't want to move on too quickly from that because um Genevieve was on TBTL a few weeks ago and she was talking about this time that she was writing a book herself and she didn't I don't think that she necessarily had publication plans but was open to it but was just trying to write kind of a a pulpy kind of fun quick read a mystery an intrigue in the white house kind of kind of book and she was really into it for a while and i gotta say it was the first couple of chapters were amazing and then i think you know it started to spiral a little bit honestly but um we talked about it because she wrote in a character that was like me um and actually named at andrew walsh and the character was awful i mean he was just he was like i heard this episode yeah and we've been kind of you know arguing about it for years now i was just like why didn't you just not write me in like why did you have to write in a terrible character who was just getting in the way of everybody um but has rachel ever written a character that you sort of see a little bit of yourself in how do you feel about that because she must be taking inspiration from real

life she has and I think she's gone about it a somewhat of a clever way where instead of modeling any characters directly off of anybody she knows like or namely her and I what she does is she'll take some attributes and sort of splinter it off so you know she's now written over half a dozen books and there will be some very small minor characteristic of like either myself or her that will show up in one of the lead characters but never like a carbon copy so it's enough to make me go like oh oh that's cute but without getting uncomfortable that like oh yeah i i don't like that i'm on the page right now but like when a when a character is like

super hunky you're like oh that's me obviously yeah right now uh where can people get this book i assume uh the the places people buy books amazon and the like like where do people go find business or pleasure yeah i mean the book all the places yeah i mean the the big bookstores the

indies the onlines it's it's it's out there all right so everybody go get or rachel's book and

uh this is just a freebie i i would imagine rachel may hear this i have been through the grapevine but it's hard to come up with fictional characters names so if she's ever striking out consider todd stout yes from the todd stout coin because that's a pretty that's a good name It's a solid name. All right, Ivan, thank you for calling in and continued great luck out there in Amsterdam. Thanks for being such an awesome friend of the show for all these many, many years, man.

And many years to come. Happy independence. Thanks, yeah. Best to Rachel.

Love that we got an international call. I know.

I'm loving it. And that is the person who had been struggling. I was texting with them. I didn't know it was Ivan until we picked up.

Well, because I don't want to blow up Ivan's spot, but I will say that Ivan's number, it's a Seattle number, because that's where Ivan lived for many years.

So nobody call every single Seattle number trying to get to Ivan.

Yeah, but no, I'm glad that it was as simple as turn the computer off, turn the computer on, and now people can hear us, because...

Well, you know what it was, really? And this is just for you, Luke. So if you're watching on the live stream, but you need a glass of water or something, now is a good time to go on that. I'm all ears. Do you remember when sometimes you and I would be dialed up and doing the show, and then suddenly you'd get a blast of static? I do. I think it has to do with this little black box right here. And what I used to have to do was unplug it and plug it back in. So I think I was giving people an earful of static when they were calling in.

You're telling me the Microbook 2C? I downloaded a driver for that thing. You carried a watermelon for this episode of the show. All right. Listen, we're now almost an hour and a half into this. And what we should really do is start to kind of begin our initial descent to the end of this episode because we need to post it so that more people will hear it, not just the people watching us on YouTube right now. And then folks will donate any more trickles to speak of. John, how's it looking over there in the financial center? A steady stream of a steady stream of donations. How's that?

I'm jealous. Yeah. Sorry. What? What?

Can we please? No more saying cuss words, guys.

it's inappropriate and violent uh so uh listen uh if again if you're if you're hearing this it means you've gotten to the end of this episode and you already know what i'm about to say which is uh we can only do this five days a week all year long um because of the donations of the listeners in fact we were i don't want to name any names but we were when we were at the airbnb we were talking about uh andrew you and i some folks that we know who were doing a podcast and we were wondering if that podcast was still happening and we checked the

website and we noticed that the podcast is doesn't seem to really be creating episodes anymore and it's because unless you are able to unless one is able to block out the time to make this their full-time job it's impossible to continue doing particularly five podcasts a week and many many some have tried some have died like you can't you can't do this squirrels now oh god back to the squirrels like the only way that this can happen is if we're able to prioritize if john's able to fly out from minnesota yesterday and i'm able to fly up from portland and andrew you're able to basically time drive the jeep through a wormhole get us here we spend all day yesterday setting it all up and all night back at the uh place kind of putting the plan together for today like this is a pretty time-consuming operation and if you want to know how vital uh your donations are The people that are not raising money for this, the people that aren't getting paid like it's their job, just don't usually do it for very long because it's not sustainable. So we are just so appreciative of everyone who's helped us out over the years. As we approach 4,000 episodes, we would not be here without the folks right now who are hearing our voices and those of you who are watching us on YouTube. So if you could please go to tbtl.net, and if your finances allow for it, maybe throw a little money into the kitty. it would really, really, really mean a lot to us because all hyperbole aside, we are not going to be able to do this unless we raise the money we need to. So that was supposed to be the soft sell. We agreed yesterday.

No, it's well said. And it's also very, very true. One of the things we heard most from people at 8 p.m. as we were sort of wrapping up our time there was, we can't believe that you guys did everything that you did as such a small team. And that was when we had a network supporting us. And now we don't. And we're still a small team. And we have John here helping us out with the important stuff that you and I aren't as familiar with. But it is going to be an uphill battle. We're in a holiday week. And if you can step up, and maybe you're somebody especially who's listened to the show for a long time but never felt motivated to give, I'm hoping that maybe we can hear from some new people.

That's right. Oh, by the way, Wednesday night, we're going to be doing TBTL Tentiques Roadshow. It's going to be our chance to Zoom with all of y'all and see the interesting family heirlooms or other important objects that you've collected over the years. I've got my eye on a few things in this basement that I want to share with everyone. A lunchbox. So we'll be doing that. So you can sign up at tbtl.net. Basically, just go to tbtl.net. Take a look around. There's about nine buttons you can click on for various things that are happening. But the biggie is the one for donating to the show. So thank you very much. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, John. Welcome to the team. first episode down I mean I know we talked to you on Friday but this is like the first real real

this is too beautiful to biz official

that is exactly right so nice having you here welcome to the team thank you very much thanks everybody we will see you tomorrow in the meantime have a great Monday and please remember no mountain too tall and good luck to all

you know you're overthinking it buddy I mean just kind of see this as a fun thing to do where you make a little bread

Power out.